The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
With the development of networks, people demand more and more communications and value-added services (VASs) are increasingly diversified. Yet over nearly one hundred years since the invention of telephone, the RBT has remained a tedious sound of “toot . . . toot . . . ”. In this age of personality, people wish that those who call them do not hear this tedious “toot . . . toot . . . ” any more. This brings a huge opportunity for VAS providers. With the advent of the next generation network (NGN) era, network bandwidth increases, network capabilities are enhanced and functionalities are richer. Based on NGN, colorful RBTs like a song, a cartoon, or a movie clip, are available to subscribers, satisfying their personalized requirements.
The current RBT service is customized by a called party to play a piece of music, a greeting, or an announcement recorded by the called party, to a calling party. It is a ring-to-you service.
In an NGN network, main equipment for implementing the ring-to-you service includes: a called party's softswitch (SX), adapted to directly connect the calling party and the called party to set up a call session between the calling party and the called party; an application server (AS), adapted to provide the ring-to-you service; an RBT platform, adapted to manage RBT files in a uniform manner; a media resource server (MRS), adapted to store RBT files and play ring-to-you tones to the calling party; a smart home location register (SHLR), adapted to store the information of ring-to-you service subscription of subscribers.
The method for implementing the ring-to-you service is shown in FIG. 1, which gives a ring-to-you service flow in the prior art. The method includes:
Step 101: A calling party calls a called party and sends a call request to the called party's SX.
Step 102: The called party's SX sends the called number to the SHLR, querying whether the called party has subscribed to the ring-to-you service. If the SHLR sends a ring-to-you access code in response, the called party's SX adds the ring-to-you access code ahead of the called number and sends the called number to the AS.
Step 103: The AS determines that the called party is a ring-to-you subscriber according to the ring-to-you access code and sends the called number back to the called party's SX to page the called party.
Step 104: The called party's SX routes the call to the called party.
Step 105: The called party is alerted and sends an Alert (Ringing) message to the called party's SX.
Step 106: The called party's SX forwards the Ringing message to the AS.
Step 107: The AS obtains the ring-to-you tone ID from the RBT platform via the tone query interface and resolves the address where the ring-to-you tone file is stored from the ring-to-you tone ID.
Step 108: The AS sends the address to the MRS, requesting the MRS to play the indicated tone to the calling party.
Step 609: The MRS obtains the ring-to-you tone file according to the received address and plays the ring-to-you tone to the calling party.
The called party answers and the following steps continue:
Step 110: The called party answers and sends an OK message to the called party's SX.
Step 111: The called party's SX forwards the OK message to the AS, notifying that the called party is connected.
Step 112: The AS sends a BYE message to the MRS and the MRS stops playing the ring-to-you tone.
Step 113: The calling party and the called party perform bidirectional negotiation under the control of the AS and start a normal conversation.
In the prior art, when the calling party calls the called party, the calling party can only passively listen to the ring-to-you tone customized by the called party. If the called party has not customized a ring-to-you tone, the calling party only hears a sound of “toot . . . toot . . . ”.